Wrap Me Up

As I noted in a previous post, I am a fiber snob.  Or was.  Until this past fall when I took a Faire Isle knitting class.  We used yarn from the shop where the class was.  And anyway, hand spun would have been too difficult for me to figure worsted weight on the spot.  And since I've made quite a few of those lovely Faire Isle hats now - all from store bought-yarns, I AM FREE from my snobbery.  Well, sort of. I still like, er, love wool and many wool blends are great, too.  But in the last few months I have even purchased 100% acrylic.  Just last week, in fact, for Faire Isle Christmas hats for our grandsons - I wanted Mom to be able to throw them in the washer.

As I also mentioned in said post, I am working on a large shawl for MYSELF.  After making that long and drawn-out sweater for my youngest son and all those hats for gifts, I thought, "Hey, maybe I can finally make a shawl for me."  I have wanted to make a shawl for a long time but the task of spinning enough yarn for a great big one was daunting.  But now, I'm not a snob.

After searching for a nice big, warm shawl pattern, I decided on this one.  The Far Away, So Close shawl at CarinaSpencer.com.  And the yarn I chose was by Plymouth Yarn, Encore Color Spun, Jolly Rancher #7518 (color name)

Has anybody ever heard of YO3????  Or a DROP STITCH???? I thought my head might explode when I first encountered those in the instructions. I am a little too compulsive to want to drop any stitches. And then I watched this video on You Tube. Isn't You Tube great for, well, for learning almost anything?  Here is what an unblocked patch of YO2, YO3 and dropped stitches looks like. (In blocking, I will be able to pull the length more uniformly.)

It's really a very nice effect.  So this shawl will end up being a bit of a sampler with a variety of different stitch combinations.  Here is what I have knitted so far.

It is slightly beyond the point in the pattern where I could end it and have a shorter shawl, but I want a big 'un.  I want to wrap myself up.

P.S. For the final product see Wrap Me Up, Too.

Knitting Some Love

I am not a very touch/feel-y person.  I have never taken the "test" to see what my love language is but I'd guess it is probably giving.  It comes to my brain to give before it ever comes to me to touch or hug.

Now, my 2 boys, who have seen me spinning and knitting since they were born, never showed any interest in the sweaters and vests that I made for them while lads.  So, when my youngest son got back to the United States, after living and studying in 4 different countries over a 6 year period asked me for a hand spun hoodie, you can bet I jumped all over that one.  What better way for a person with my love language to show love.  Doing something I love for someone I love - who actually wanted it.  So I dug in.  And dug myself in deeper and deeper.  

I started in June of 2012.  I had a nice pile of washed brown merino wool upon which we decided.  So soft. But I was concerned that it wasn't going to be quite enough so I had the last of a brown corriedale fleece that would be added to the merino, in small amounts. Unknown to me at the time, the corriedale had a lot of little, teeny-weeny balls in it.  

First, the merino all had to be teased - by hand. (Teasing, or picking, is the process of taking wool before it is carded and separating the locks so that it is much easier to card.)  Teasing this soft, fine wool quickly became a royal pain.   So I wanted to buy a hand picker.  After seeing the exorbitant prices, I settled on the Kaydessa Wool Picker found on eBay.  Much more reasonable.  This is what it looks like on the outside.

And this is what it looks like on the inside!!  OUCH!

Well, that is the nature of wool pickers.  They need something with which to "pick."  The problem is that the merino was so fine and the "pickers" were too far apart to do much good. It helped a little for the preliminary pick but it was not satisfactory.  I plodded along but took breaks from it, dreading the task at hand.  The same thing happened when carding.  

I had a bought a new Pat Green carder many years before but had never used it.  But this project made me dig it out of its original box to try and make the job easier.  Which it did.

But...with all those teeny-weeny little balls in the corriedale wool, it took more time picking out little balls than it actually took to card all the wool for the hoodie.  Ah, yes, the hoodie...the act of love...had to remind myself to keep that in mind.  I worked on prepping the wool all summer and most of the fall. Except that I took lots of breaks.  

When I finally had enough to get a good start, I began knitting.  

The problem with starting before it was all spun was that I'd get the yarn spun and then knitted fairly quickly and then would have to begin the teeny-weeny ball pulling/carding all over again.  Are you getting the picture?  Understanding why it took me 1 1/2 years?  

I will leave out the part where I used my traveling spinning wheel on a trip and had the tension all wrong and the part where I ran out of wool. Twice. I will mention that Susan at Susan's Fiber Shop helped me match some of her already processed merino, to which I added some of the "bally" corriedale, to get a near perfect mix. And that I had to figure out how to install a zipper. You Tube to the rescue again!

The yarn was actually so nice and soft. And stretchy, which means the elbows will always go back to original shape. Love wool. And, really the entire process was a joy, that is, spinning up and knitting up the merino.  I finally got the sweater finished in December of 2013.  And is it ever nice.  The pattern I used can be found on Ravelry, but is actually a Knit Picks Design. I used the men's version!!  Of course!!  And here are some pictures of the finished product, which, by the way, my son is very proud of.  It is so nice.

And after he had worn it a few weeks, he decided he needed pockets.  So I picked up a row of stitches on each side of the zipper and knitted pockets.  

Whew!!  Love...it's hard sometimes.  

P.S. I recently found a picture from several years before I began this project.  I was looking over my wool stash, trying to find something for a woven scarf.  Aaron walked into the room, saw the lovely locks and...

My Foremothers

From the time my late husband & I moved to Portage, WI in 1981 for his Family Practice practice, a group of us there used to demonstrate spinning for schools, library programs, city-wide festivities, nursing homes and just about anywhere we were asked to show what we do.  I have always enjoyed spinning, whether it was in front of a fire at home, on the front porch, at friends' homes or demonstrating.  It is so relaxing - just plain lovely.  Another reason I love it and love to demonstrate is that it all helps to keep the art alive.  We no longer NEED to spin our own yarn and very few of us will ever have sheep so it would be easy for the ability and knowledge to die out.  But we must keep our histories alive.  

I have often felt a link to OUR fore mothers, who worked so hard to eek out a living with their husbands, if they had one, and then in the evenings after everything else was done and the dishes put away one more time, they would continue to work by the light of the fire or oil lamp by spinning linen for the loom or yarn for the needles.  I love to read books about fiber arts in the "old days" and love to go to museums where spinning wheels and equipment are displayed.  It's at those times that the connection with our fore mothers is perpetuated.  I do have to guard against romanticizing those days but we all know that it was hard, hard, hard.  I rather like my microwave and dishwasher. 

Now, my dear maternal grandmother died over a year ago at the age of 96.  Here she is pictured at her 90th birthday party in Byrdstown, TN.  After about age 92, she began going down hill, but she never lost her spunk or her sense of humor.  We all miss her so much.


In June of last year (2013), my mother culminated months of going through Grandma's things with a big yard sale. Grandma lived through the Great Depression and never.threw.anything.away.  Mom had her hands full.  My sister and I helped but we couldn't really make any decisions.  Well, we made some of the obvious decisions, like "throw this in the garbage bag."  We found many treasures, some of which were bought by me or other family members and some that needed a lot of repair so were sold to dealers and collectors.  And then some things were too dear for a price and Mom decided who should have them.  

There was something in an old trunk that Mom decided I should have. It is the equipment my great, great grandmother used to keep her family warm and the floor covered against the cold.  I posted a picture that contained Granny Dillon in my first post. But this picture below is Granny Dillon in younger days with her family (her first 2 children.)  The baby is my great grandmother, who died after I was grown up, so I remember her well.

 The items my mother gave me are pictured below.  

 There are 2 pairs of cotton cards.  However, the pair on the right has wool in it's "bristles." There is a set of sock knitting needles, a darning ball, 2 tiny crochet hooks, likely for making lace or doilies, a large wooden crochet hook for making rugs, 3 shuttles for a floor loom AND a bobbin head for a SPINNING WHEEL.

How exciting.  I won't be able to use all of the items.  Age has rendered them brittle and delicate.  The needles may be usable and the shuttles, possibly.  The bobbin head is beyond use, and of course would need to go with its wheel.  I can only imagine what kind of wheel went with it.  I can get an idea by the size and type.  Oh, how I would love at least a picture of the wheel.  

But having these things in my possession keeps that connection with MY fore mothers alive.  I now have evidence that my fore mothers did out of necessity what I do for enjoyment and relaxation.  And who knows, but what my great, great, great grandmother used these same tools - for they threw nothing away. 

Fiber Snob

Because I began spinning before I knitted, I grew to love wool and have long since shunned acrylic yarns.  Even blends.  There I said it. Wool is such a great gift from our loving Father.  It is ALL natural ( au naturale); it is an excellent insulator, even if wet (In fact, it produces some heat when wet); it is fire resistant; it breathes and reshapes itself; it is probably the easiest fiber to spin; it takes dyes so well; it is simply wonderful.  Therefore, from the beginning of my spinning adventure, I decided that I couldn't knit anything if I didn't have enough hand spun finished.  But this last fall, some 35 years later, I had a change of heart.  I took a Faire Isle knitting class, in which we used "store bought" yarn.  It was really nice - alright, it was 100% wool.  BUT I did not spin it.  And it was okay.  The Gina yarn (Plymouth Yarn Company) we used was variegated, single ply, worsted weight.  The contrasting color was black (although white and cream work well, too).

The variegated nature of the yarn made the Faire Isle hats look much more complicated than they actually were.  Here are the first two that I made.

Since I learned in late fall, I went on to make 1 about every 2-3 days for Christmas gifts. 12 in all.  In April I  have made 2 Faire Isle baby hats.  They are adorable. ~pat-pat~ Here is the first one.  The second has not yet been gifted...must wait to post.

I also made some team hats out of ~drum roll~ ALL acrylic yarns.  It was okay, too.

The first one is a Tennessee Vols for my dad and the second - grrrr - is a Chicago Bears hat for my brother-in-law.

Well enough about hats! (Although I could go on and on, if you really want me to.)  I am currently working on a large shawl.  I'm very excited about it.  I am using Plymouth Yarn Company's Encore yarn, 25% wool.  The pattern can be purchased here, at Carina Spencer.com.  And this is what I have done so far:

So, you see, I have made real progress in correcting my character flaw of being a Fiber Snob!

However, I'm just beginning the section where I have to DROP stitches!  ~gulp~  We'll see how someone as anal as I am can handle that one. (Another character flaw) 

There's Always a Beginning

There's always a beginning and this is the beginning of a new adventure for me. Blogging! A dear friend has encouraged me to start a knitting blog.  Oh, but there's more to me than knitting.  So here goes.

I was born in the mid 1950's to a blue collar family.  My dad was a factory worker for AT&T and a very responsible provider for my younger sister and me. My mom was a stay-at-home mom who kept a wonderfully tidy, organized home.  They grew up in the western edge of the Appalachians in Tennessee.  Here are the homes they grew up in: 

 This is the house in which my mother was born, outside of Byrdstown, TN.

 My paternal grandparents home (with my "paternal" on the porch)

This is my great, great grandmother's house  in 'downtown' Byrdstown. It later became my great grandmother's house and my mother and her family lived with her grandmother from time to time.

When I was almost 12, my family moved to Indianapolis, IN and I remained there until I left for college.  But we spent most of our vacations and many weekends down in the mountains with my grandparents and other family so their lifestyle was a huge influence in my life. 

I learned to sew fairly well in Jr. High Home Economics and being a 'child of the 60's' and with my self-sufficiency roots, I began at a young age desiring to make clothing from the beginning.  I didn't really know what all that entailed.  But after my young husband finished medical school and we moved to Muncie, IN for his residency, we bought me an Ashford spinning wheel kit.  After we put a finish on it and put it together it looked like this:

So that began the process.  I learned how to spin, taught myself to knit (I am a "thrower" knitter - not the most efficient method) and will try to journal some of my projects and my memories.